after her moment of panic at being deserted by her more sophisticated mate, applied herself to the advantages of personal companionship with Mrs. Rountree.
Lida, Jay felt sure, for the present was dependable. He did not yet know what she was doing but she was not merely amusing herself.
It was a glorious morning for golf, cool and clear except for a light, midwinter haze hanging in the air, softening the slopes of the distant hills and screening the glare of the sun. There it stood in the sky, a great, gleaming copper plate, half noon high.
Jay sent to the lockers for his bag; Metten picked up his from the veranda and, as a torrent of negro caddies surged about them, Phil followed his own advice in regard to permitting no Rountree, in a Metten presence, to pay for anything.
"I hire you and you," he engaged two boys, handing each, in advance, a dollar. "You carry Mr. Rountree's clubs. . . . Well," he observed genially to Jay, "a nice place this is, just like you said it. A nice change from the north. A nice change from business. . . . A man sticks too close to business these days, I say. . . . You, perhaps," Phil ventured, "are going now into business?"
"Next week," said Jay, "if not sooner."
"So?" asked Phil, with some surprise. "With your papa, perhaps? What will you do in the firm? Sell?"
Jay shook his head.
"Not sell?" rebuked Phil, kindly. "Believe me, there is the money for a young man."
"I don't know what I'm going to do," Jay explained, halting and swinging at a clump of grass, as he felt sud-
